Dear Editor,
During Easter week, the streets of Moab and Grand County were saturated with hundreds of parked trailers. Some of the trailers and vehicles are nearly 60 feet long. Some roads during the week had traffic restricted to one lane with restricted access for emergency vehicles. “No parking” signs in the county were ignored by many visitors to the area.
Westwater Drive near the Moab Golf Club, which provides access to approximately 100 homes and condominiums, was reduced significantly in size by nearly a mile of trailers parking on both sides of the road. Aggressive parking enforcement by the Grand County Sheriff’s Office was necessary to provide enough room for emergency vehicle access.
Response time for emergency equipment is a major factor when insurance companies set fire rates for our area. Grand County has a fire insurance rating of 4 from the Insurance Service Office (ISO). This rating of 4 is a higher rating than several years ago due to improvements in the Moab Valley Fire Department. The ratings are 1 to 10 with a rating of 1 being the highest. The ISO rating is used by most insurance companies in Grand County to determine your insurance payments.
Emergency vehicles on a one-lane road can be completely blocked by outgoing traffic from a fire area. Access time to an emergency can be significantly increased when emergency equipment is required to maneuver around and through parked vehicles. The access to many of the residents on Westwater Drive would have required fire hoses to be dragged over and under parked vehicles and trailers.
Parking for large trailers is available at private lots in Grand County and at the Old Spanish Trail Arena. Parking on rural and city streets with trailers up to 40 feet long is not necessary.
Overnight parking restrictions from midnight to 5 a.m. should be considered by both the city and the county. Trailer size should be restricted during the day in residential areas. Doing nothing should not be an alternative.
